


To Be Human

by erialeduab



Series: Teen Wolf Reimagined [1]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon compliant until end of season 2, F/F, F/M, Gen, M/M, Multi, Past Allison Argent/Scott McCall
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-20
Updated: 2019-04-27
Packaged: 2020-01-22 19:28:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,128
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18533983
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/erialeduab/pseuds/erialeduab
Summary: An AU mostly canon compliant until the end of Season 3, covering the events of Season 3. The fic reintroduces Kira and Malia, and follows them through the events of Lose Your Mind.This is a series entitled "Teen Wolf Reimagined" with each fic focusing on a different set of characters, but it's an ensemble cast throughout. This first fic focuses on Malia and Kira.NB: This fic doesn't have all the relationship tags because I'm trying an experiment where people go into a fic for its premise, and get surprise relationships along the way. I've only included pairings present at the beginning of the fic. I've planned about two seasons so far, with multiple characters arcs. I hope that's enough for the curious reader to be satsified. There will be romances in this fic, I just don't want people to go in with preconceptions of who ends up where.





	1. Episode 1: entropy

**Author's Note:**

> A lot of things about Teen Wolf are annoying, but I can look past them in the grand scheme of the fic and general fandom being more important than the show itself, and our interpretations of the raw materials being more complex, rich and satisfying than the show can ever hope to be. That said, the character of Malia has been thoroughly abused by the writers of this show. While most of Teen Wolf is nonsensical at best, this takes the cake. The explanation for her character is a plot chasm, not a plot hole. Apart from the obvious – being separated from society, being self-reliant for years – the show could also show the ill-effects of being misdiagnosed with a mental illness, (granted Eichen House is as much of a mental institution as Arkham Asylum is, but the point remains). When Stiles had that dementia scare in Season 3 the scene was full of genuine emotion, and it was so powerful even though the rest of the plot is completely stupid. 
> 
> But Malia? Nothing. She complains about Calculus and one has to wonder why she is even taking it in the first place? The traumatic experience of being a coyote for ten years, having the social skills of a nine year old (plus eight year old coyote) and then not only going to high school but having a boyfriend (and let’s not even talk about that scene in Echo House) and fighting evil on the side seems ludicrous at the very least. Malia could is a complex, deeply misunderstood character that Jeff Davis and Co. have effectively butchered in order to serve their purposes as Stiles Stilinski’s Girlfriend Extraordinaire, the Season 5 storyarc and for some reason Scott's Girlfriend Extraordinaire. Kira, by the way, is another profoundly underdeveloped character. While I think the nogitsune was a great villain for the third season, Kira herself was relegated to being a product of her heritage (whereas Scott is the exact opposite in this regard) and Scott’s love interest.
> 
> I had to give Malia, Kira and the other characters in this show a passing semblance to reality, and thus this story was born. I started this fic well becfore the show ended and I never finished it because life got in the way, but I thought now would be as good a time as any to start posting.

Sheriff Stilinski is sitting at his desk, surrounded by mountains of old case files. It is midnight, and he is just getting started. The Sheriff takes his job much more seriously after the Big Reveal of the last Big Bad. Funny, how desperation makes people work even harder than before. Desperation is bad for the nogitsune.  

Why do humans behave this way? And really, they are  _all_ humans. The werewolves and banshees and demons. They all come from the same seed, the same ancestors. They are but reflections of each other in the fun-house mirror. The essence is the same, the form different.  

The nogitsune precedes them by millennia, has seen each ‘race’ born, evolve, grow. Patiently biding it’s time.  

It’s funny; how despair can make humans work even harder than before, make them desperate. Desperation is bad for the nogitsune. Humans have a nasty habit of trying too hard. And so, depression is ideal. 

But fear is paramount. It’s a delicate balance to strike: hopeless fear. Very difficult to maintain. Nothing feeds this kind of fear as much as the unknown.  

What is hiding in the shadows? What is hidden behind a smile, underneath the bed? In a hospital scan or behind someone’s back?  

Humans have been trying to solve the problem of the unknown for as long as they’ve been around. It is the fundamental nature of the human condition. Uncertainty is their biggest anxiety. 

They do not seem to grasp that they are tiny, inconsequential beings fighting that primal, inescapable force that the universe tends toward: entropy. Everything tends towards chaos and disorder. To try to understand chaos is to attempt to understand madness itself. But the humans try to do it anyway. The nogitsune might have admired their tenacity, if it wasn’t so incredibly stupid. 

The truth will not set the Sheriff free but it will help him find a way out, and now that half of Beacon Hills found out about some aspect of the supernatural as well, the nogitsune has a daunting task ahead. A challenge is always good, but there’s something else now, something the nogitsune wanted to avoid. 

Hope. The truth, even just the notion of it, the aspiration to it, gives the Sherriff hope. And hope is the most dangerous emotion of all. 

Tragedy begets tragedy. Fearful, paranoid people aren't very good at fighting what they call ‘evil’ – the nogitsune prefers amoral. Morality is for humans and their petty, insignificant egos.  

Uncertainty does not self-sacrifice make.  

But the nogitsune always chooses the masters of self-sacrifice: it chooses heroes. And heroes have this habit of getting in the way of carefully constructed plans, despite their stupidity, or maybe in spite of it.  

But heroes have angst. They ooze it, rich and dark and black, as fresh as the blood of some sacrificial bull on the altar for the gods.  

For the Sherriff, much time has passed. The nogitsune has difficulty with time, and human’s inability to stand it without change. The Sherriff is a hero, but he's accepted his angst. There isn't nearly enough remaining in the memory of his wife, he's moved on. Stiles sees the way he talks to Melissa, and through his eyes the nogitsune understands what is unsaid, un-acted between them.  

Stiles looks at the cases the Sherriff has unofficially reopened, mostly unexplained animal attacks and disappearances in the woods. One name catches his attention, a name familiar to Stiles but too vague for even the nogitsune to sieve through his brain to find. A distant memory, blurred by time.  

The name is Malia Tate. Stiles picks up the file and flips through it - definitely supernatural. The nogitsune stores the information carefully, every detail of the case - dates, details, maps, augmenting Stiles' knowledge without damaging his brain. There if Stiles looked for it, but otherwise unnoticed.  It's crucial that Stiles remain Stiles because the nogitsune relies on his knowledge of the others - of the true Alpha and the banshee and the huntress, to trick them. Tampering with Stiles brain would be as good as killing him, and the nogitsune has no desire to inhabit another body. Everything hinges on Stiles, on his position within the group, of his vulnerabilities, and the people who are vulnerable because of him.  

The nogitsune nudges Stiles to leave it conspicuously atop the mess of files on the Sherriff’s desk. There is potential for chaos in these pages, and that is all the nogitsune needs.  


	2. Episode 2: My (Best) Friend's Hot

Kira looks at her AP history class. By some unfortunate circumstance her father is the only history teacher at this school (Kira later learns the previous teacher _died_ ) so she’s stuck in the most clichéd and embarassing new-kid situation she thought she would have the good fortune never to experience.

There are about twenty kids, and all but her and this (half?) Latino kid are white and reek of suburbia. Kira's a city girl, through and through. She couldn’t stand people from Westchester, let alone the cookie-cutter suburbs of California.

Because, seriously, she expected a town literally called _Beacon Hills_ to be different but apparently supernatural creatures have the same inane, materialistic goals as humans, with a dash of uncontrollable blood-lust thrown in. Her Mom doesn’t tell her why they moved, but she guesses it has something to do with the supernatural. Why else would a weapons maker move to an inconsequential town in sunny California?

Her friends back in New York were just like her - a little… different. Granted, in New York the word ‘different’ is not one of degrees, but of kind. _Everyone_ is different. New Yorkers don't seem to have the same limitations as everyone else, and Kira appreciates that. After all, it’s not like a kitsune could go unnoticed in any city.

That’s what Kira thought, until she came to Beacon Hills. A tiny, sleepy, suburban town of Sacarmento surrounded by forests and granite hills. The problem, however, is that in Beacon Hills, she's no longer anonymous. Kira was comfortable in New York. Invisibility suited her. 

In Beacon Hills it's weird. She noticed it the minute she arrived, there is this buzz in the air, this awareness. Her Mom hadn't told her why they were moving, but she had guessed it had something to do with the supernatural. She didn't realize places like this could even exist. New York let her be, but she was still limited in how open she was. Even if people are dead and dying, even if Beacon Hills is literally a hell mouth waiting to be opened, she’s a little excited. Its something out of the Whedonverse, but Kira quietly buries her references deep, deep down, and tries to make a good first impression. Something, it turns out, she’s not particularly familiar with.

She looks around for a place to sit, and sees two empty desks next to a tall boy with too much cheekbone at the back of the class and makes her way towards them. From her position she can see the Mexican kid, and next to him sits the most beautiful girl she’s ever seen. The girl turns around and catches Kira’s eye, giving her a quick smile, and whispers something to the boy. Kira looks away, trying not to blush or do anything else that might incriminate her. But once the lesson starts she can’t help but stare at her-Allison Argent, according to role call.

There were no girlfriends, no romantic drama. Kira had known she was gay for a long time, but never felt that same desperation to explore it that she had noticed in others. Her sexuality just was. She didn't want it to define her. Just like her Korean-Japanese heritage, or her supernatural heritage. All her identities blurred into one, there was no separating them.

She was just Kira, and romance was for later. New York would be there for her when she was ready, waiting. At least, that's what she'd thought.

Mr. Yukimura is the living embodiment on Phil "Why The Face" Dunphy. Kira loves him to pieces, but this is really not helping. She spends most of the class angrily doodling tiny, angry daggers disguised as careful notes in her notebook as her Dad gives his new teacher on the block speech, which involve several history puns. It's almost comical that she cares this much about what a bunch of straight-laced suburbans think of her, but there it is.

At lunch Kira sees a strawberry blonde bombshell with her jock boyfriend, walking around the cafeteria like they own the place. She can tell apart the athletes easily, and isn’t surprised that lacrosse is California's football.

All the kids dress the same, talk the same, walk the same. All of them, apart from the brunette - Allison - sitting in front of her, who is dressed all in black with, for some reason, a knife strapped to her calf. Kitsunes don't have as many powers as Kira would like, but the enhanced eyesight is definitely appreciated. Before she can figure out why anyone would need what looks like obsidian from the shape of it, at a wealthy public suburban high school, Allison walks away from the line and towards her table, where the Latino – Scott McCall, cheekbone boy – Isaac Lahey, the strawberry blonde and the jock are seated, along with a tall gangly kid who definitely has ADHD.

Kira really, really doesn't appreciate her parents uprooting her and dragging her to the opposite end of the country. But now that she's here, she doesn't want to just disappear. So when she hears Allison Argent talking about Bardo, she finds it only fitting to correct her. (Later she wonders how she actually managed to get not one word, but whole sentences to make sense. And then realises she didn’t, not really, and proceeds to research the hell out of Bardo.)

Allison draws Kira in, that day when they are talking about the nightmares. She has an aura and the kitsune can sense it. It's powerful. Maybe she has a little crush on her. She's probably straight - this whole town is probably straight. But so what? Straight people fall for each other all the time, even if its unrequited. And it's not _love_ , it's just interest. They are young and Allison is new and different and exciting. 

But of course, her father has to mess it up before it's even begun. Before she can even have one moment of bliss. 

"You left behind all the research you did for that girl you liked" Kira can feel her cheeks burning as her Dad hands her the files.

"Thanks Dad" she mutters, but Allison just smiles and takes the papers. Allison must think it's funny, think Kira's a joke after this. But she doesn't, just has this smile on her face and makes Kira feel like it's okay, like she's not alone. After class she catches up with Kira as she tries, desperately, to get as far away from her Dad as humanly possible.

"Hey! Kira! Wait up" Allison matches her stride easily and Kira slows, turning to look at her.

"Hi…” Kira looks down, up, anywhere but into Allison’s dark brown eyes.

"I just wanted to say thanks, again, for the research. It means a lot that you'd go out of your way to help us, I mean you barely know us and- anyways, thanks" Kira notices that she says us, knows that Allison is clearly doing her best not to lead her on "And, I don't want to be presumptuous-

"It's fine. I know you're straight" Kira blurts it out to avoid Allison having to say it. Allison looks at her gratefully,

"Right, well, I just. Communication is. Really. Important." Allison decides, and meets Kira’s eyes, "At least, that's what I've learnt." There is a lot of meaning behind Allison's words, Allison seems to really mean what she's saying but Kira finds it hard to believe. Allison probably dates really nice guys. Probably the kind of guys who communicate all the time. Allison looks like she's about to leave, but then changes her mind and asks

"Do you want to have lunch with us?" Kira grins.

"I'd love to."

Kira is surprised to be accepted into the group so easily (it only takes a few weeks before they save her from the wild coyote, and a couple more before she saves their asses and they find out she’s a kitsune - but that's all semantics really). Scott later confesses that he heard her talking to her father about the no friend situation, and that Lydia had her suspicions (keep your potential enemies close right?). And while Kira wants to be insulted, Lydia isn’t completely wrong. But she'll pretend it was just that Allison liked her (she says she did) and leave it at that. 

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Marina's "To Be Human"


End file.
